| 释义 |
twitcher|ˈtwɪtʃə(r)|
[f. twitch v.1 + -er1.]
One who or that which twitches.
1. An instrument for plucking or pinching something.
†a. An instrument for clinching hog-rings; cf. hog-ringer (hog n.1 13). Obs.
†b. = twitch n.1 3 b. Obs.
†c. Tweezers for extracting superfluous hairs. Obs.
†d. Tweezers or nippers used in cookery for trimming or ornamenting pastry, etc. Obs.
1573Tusser Husb. (1878) 38 Strong yoke for a hog, with a twicher and rings. 1688R. Holme Armoury iii. 244/1 Yoke for Swine, Twitchers or Rings. Ibid. 302/2 Horse Twichers, or Bracks..to put on Horses Noses, when they will not stand quietly to be Shooed [etc.]. Ibid. 427/1 A Twitcher, or Twitchers; by them Hair superfluously growing in any part is pulled up by the Roots. Ibid. xxii. (Roxb.) 274/2 Instruments belonging to the Cook. The first is termed a Runner with Twichers. Some Cooks call these Iging [? edging] Irons.
2. One who or that which moves jerkily or spasmodically. rare.
1793M. Wollstonecraft Lett. to Imlay viii. (1879) 19 Where shall I find a word to express the relationship which subsists between us? Shall I ask the little twitcher?
3. That which causes twitching; a severe blow; acute pain. dial.
1828Craven Gloss., Twitcher, a severe blow. 1877Sunday Mag. 182 ‘The rheumatis’ had, in his own phrase, ‘caught him on the hop and given him a twitcher’.
4. A bird-watcher whose main aim is to collect sightings of rare birds.
1977Birds Summer 59/3 Twitchers are difficult to identify because they are polymorphic. Best clues are behavioural including carrying Zeiss binoculars and Where to Watch Birds... Known to have nested in Wandsworth and possess a sense of humour. 1978Sunday Times 19 Feb. 5/1 (caption) The people in the picture are ‘twitchers’—birdwatchers. 1980[see ticker3 2]. 1980L. Brown in Howard & Moore Compl. Checklist Birds of World p. vii, Certainly, knowing what a bird is and where it occurs is the first step towards the wider interest that may stem from merely ticking a bird off on a list—twitching, as the vulgar parlance has it. 1982Times 15 June 10/4 Twitchers are only interested in spotting rarities to claim they have seen them. Ornithologists are serious students, who despise and distrust twitchers. 1982Brit. Birds LXXV. 537 The word ‘twitcher’ has, over the last decade, gained widespread use, meaning a person who ‘chases’ rare birds... I first heard the term from Bob Emmett at Beachy Head in 1968, when it was used to mean anyone who got ‘twitchy’ when southeast winds blew and headlands bristled with Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts. |